Operationalising multilateral development banks’ alignment with the 2030 Agenda

Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) are currently presented as essential stakeholders, given their multilateral nature, to deliver this massive push, but they are also criticised for insufficiently taking risks and demonstrating their development impact, including for global public goods (such as climate, health, biodiversity). The notion of alignment with the 2030 Agenda is essential in this regard, to drive jointly these two ambitions (more finances for more global public goods) and the necessary ownership by countries of operation.

This Study provides a brief overview on five key MDBs (one per continent, namely the European Investment Bank (EIB), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), plus the World Bank (WB) and their efforts to strengthen their development impact and to respond to the needs of partner countries across the globe by aligning with the 2030 Agenda. With a view to supporting global discussions currently taking place on the need to rethink the role of MDBs, it intends to provide MDBs’ shareholders, development banks’ staff, and development and finance experts with a baseline assessment of MDBs efforts to align with the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs at three levels of analysis: strategic, institutional, and operational. This assessment is intended to support a follow-up collective discussion to identify concrete means to advance development impact and alignment on the 2030 Agenda.